Letters: The French way

Vive la France for having such a short time span between the first round of voting for president and the final one. Here at home, hopefuls within one party go at each other tooth and nail, then kiss and make up so they can support the front-runner. At this point, the anointed candidate has six months to tell a new story, which may not sound very much like the story he told when he was running against his peers.

Politicians are slippery enough as it is. Why do we provide them with several months to rebrand, retool and refluff themselves? Time, far from providing clarity, does just the opposite: It gives the nominees a seemingly endless opportunity to confuse us about who they really are.